


Bee Mine

by ginger_mosaic



Series: The Guinea Pig 'Verse [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic Hunters, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 15:14:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10126727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginger_mosaic/pseuds/ginger_mosaic
Summary: Dean and Castiel know everything about each other—until they don’t. Eight months in, and they’re still trying to figure it out, and Dean never spent enough time in a relationship to figure out how to get past a fight.Maybe the most important part is that they’re willing to try.





	

 

Claire is sitting on the gym steps with her group of drama nerds when Dean pulls into the school parking lot. She turns at the growl of the Impala but doesn’t move to get up yet, so Dean just rolls in and looks for a spot along the curb. He doesn’t begrudge her the time she wants to take with her new friends, even if they are a bunch of geeks. He remembers how his dad would always speed into the school, honk twice, and berate Dean if he took too long disentangling himself from the girl he was macking on. Dean never had many friends; it seemed pointless to make any. Sam was always heartbroken whenever he had to leave a new friend behind, and Dean figured he couldn’t help Sam through it if he was mourning, too.

So he lets Claire take her time and pulls his phone out. He doesn’t have any messages, except an old notification from the Words With Friends game that Sam was kicking his ass at. He opens it to see what he has. He could almost spell “bludgeon,” but he is missing a “d.” If he puts in “blue,” it would open up a double word score for Sam to take. Maybe Claire could help, with her new SAT vocabulary.

The passenger door opens, and Claire throws her backpack into the footwell, but she doesn’t get in yet.

“Hey,” Dean says, slipping his phone back into his pocket and looking up to smile at her. A boy is standing behind her, grinning nervously and gripping the strap of his backpack tightly. Dean blinks at him, and Claire leans down to peer into the car.

“Hey, Dean, this is Justin,” she says. “He wanted to see the car.”

A line if he’s ever heard one. “Hey,” he says to Justin, nodding at him.

“Hi, Mr. Winchester,” says Justin, buzzing with nervous excitement. “I like your car. It’s a ’68?”

“’67,” he says.

“Oh, I thought it was a ’69,” says Claire breezily. Dean purses his lips at her, and Justin smothers a laugh.

“Well, she’s a beaut,” says Justin. “And no mods? Nice.”

Uh-uh. Dean glances at Claire, but she’s just got her arms crossed, looking bored. “You like cars?” he asks Justin.

Justin nods. “My dad’s a mechanic.”

All right, so maybe he’s legit. “So was mine.” He watches Justin’s eyes roam around the inside. “You need a ride home?”

Justin’s eyes light up, and Claire scoffs and finally gets into the car. “Jeez, Dean, you might as well have offered him candy, too.”

“Is it really okay?” Justin asks.

Dean glances into the back seat. He’s pretty sure it’s clean. “Hop in.”

Justin practically dives into the back of the Impala, and Claire pulls her door shut and waves to the three other kids sitting on the steps.

“Thanks,” says Justin, leaning over the front bench to check out the console. “I’m on Emerson.”

“That way,” says Claire, pointing.

Justin asks him questions about the Impala in great detail, and Dean is more than happy to talk about Baby to anyone who will listen. He describes putting her back together after an—accident, and how hard it is to find decent parts these days, and how to get the body shape just right when you’ve gotta work from scratch. Justin gets excited about the tape deck and asks to see Dean’s tapes, so Claire passes him the box from the glove compartment.

“Oh, man,” says Justin. “Black Sabbath tapes? Holy crap. Claire, you weren’t kidding.”

“I _told_ you,” says Claire, rolling her eyes.

“What do you listen to?” asks Dean.

Justin shrugs. “Mostly indie stuff, I guess. The Lumineers.”

The huh? Dean groans. “Come on, man, I _trusted_ you. Now I gotta find out you like _Sam_ music? Dude.”

Claire laughs, and Justin smiles apologetically.

“Sam’s your brother, right?” he says, and when Dean says, “Yeah,” he nods. “So, uh, where’s Mr… uh…”

Dean grips the steering wheel tighter but loosens his hold when Claire glances at him. “Singer,” he tells Justin. “We didn’t do the last name thing. But you can quit it with the ‘misters.’ Dean and Cas is fine.”

Justin nods. “So where’s Cas?”

“He, uh,” Dean says, swallowing. “He has, uh, work.”

“What does he do?”

“Private investigation,” is the lie they all decided on, so that’s what Dean says. “We all do it,” he adds, before Justin can ask. “It’s kinda the family business.”

“What do you investigate?”

“I already told you, Justin,” says Claire with mock impatience. “They’re like the Ghostbusters.” Justin laughs, and Dean smirks, but it falls when Justin asks, “Or the Ghostfacers?”

“Fuck those guys,” Dean mutters, but Justin doesn’t hear over his laughter and then Claire declares that they’ve reached Justin’s house. It’s a two-story in the suburbaniest neighborhood Dean’s seen in a while, and Justin gets out of the car but stops at Claire’s open window to say good-bye.

“Thanks for the ride, Mister—Dean,” he says, glancing around the Impala once more. “She’s beautiful.”

 _Uh-huh_. “See ya around, Justin.”

He waves to Claire and starts up his walk, and Dean waits until they reach the next block before speaking.

“So,” he says. “Justin.”

Claire rolls her eyes. “I know what you’re thinking, and you can stop. Justin’s gay.”

Dean frowns. “Oh.” It’s actually kind of a relief. What the hell are they gonna do when Claire _does_ start dating? They might need to have a strategy meeting about this.

“He really wanted to meet you,” says Claire.

“What?” Dean asks, startled. “Why? He doesn’t have a crush on me, does he?”

Claire bursts out laughing, and Dean looks away from the road to stare at her, panic building in his gut. He had been joking, but the tone of Claire’s laughter implies that he’s close to the mark.

“I mean, probably,” she says. “Like half my school does. My math teacher saw you last week and told me it was a damn shame. And I said, ‘Ew, gross, he’s my dad-figure,’ and ran away, because _ew, gross_ ,” she adds, and Dean’s heart skips from panic to a still-too-high rate that is somehow warmer at “dad-figure.”

“She hot?” he asks, mostly to avoid the thought that the teacher probably didn’t mean “taken” when she said it was a damn shame.

“And now I say, ‘Ew, gross, she’s my teacher.’ I dunno. She’s old like you.”

“Hey, screw you, I’m a friggin’ spring chicken.”

“More like an old cock.”

Dean looks away from the road again to glare at her, and she smirks.

“Anyway, why’d he wanna meet me?” Dean grumbles, turning his attention back to driving. “If I’m so gross and old.”

Claire shrugs. “He does like old cars. And you’re, like, the only other person he knows who’s Not Straight. He’s only out to us. He needed to, I dunno, know you’re real.”

Dean swallows again. He knows that feeling. He never really had anyone around who made him think it was okay. “Well, shit,” he says. “How’d I do at being a ‘Not Straight’ role model, then?”

She shrugs again. “Probably being yourself is good enough.”

Right. _That’s_ easy enough. Christ.

He gets on the main street, still going over everything he said to Justin in his head, trying to find something he fucked up, but it was a normal conversation, he thinks. Being the only person you know who isn’t normal is hard, but Dean is also used to it. He only ever told Cassie about hunting, for a long time. Even Lisa finding out was just part of a case. He’s had to fake who he is to everyone his whole life.

“Hey, can we stop by the post office?” says Claire. “I wanna check our box for my test scores.”

“Yeah,” says Dean, shaking himself and changing lanes. They detour on over to the post office and nab a parking spot out front. Dean follows Claire in to the PO box room and unlocks the box for her when she says she’s forgotten the code.

“All those vocab words pushing out useful info?” he asks, pulling out two envelopes, one white and letter-sized and the other a padded manila. A slip of paper falls from between them, and he bends down to pick it up.

“Hey, I gotta remember my locker combo, too,” she says. “Some things take priority.” She notices the slip. “What’s that?”

He shrugs. “Package slip. Maybe Sam ordered something.”

Which means they have to wait in line, and Dean thinks about just making Sam drive all the way into town to pick up his own goddamn mail, but Sam is coming back from a hunt tonight, and he’ll probably be too wiped for a few days to make the trip. Damn, but Dean is a good brother.

“One of these is for you,” says Claire suddenly, and Dean looks at the large padded envelope she’s holding out to him.

“Huh?” he says, and lo and behold, the manila envelope has his name on it. He takes it from Claire and turns it in his hands, squeezing it, but it could be anything. “I don’t remember ordering any—”

Oh. Oh shit.

Dean feels his face heating up, and he quickly shoves the envelope into his jacket pocket, folding it carelessly because he _did_ order something, and he suddenly remembers _exactly_ what it was.

“What is it?” asks Claire.

“Nothin’,” he grunts.

“It says it’s from Amazon,” she says.

“Yup,” he says, looking straight ahead and trying to fight this goddamn blush. He can feel Claire’s suspicious gaze on him. He steps forward and away from her when the person in front of them moves up.

Claire is quiet for a long time, but then she whispers, “Is it a girly magazine?”

“Jesus Christ, Claire,” he hisses, finally turning to her in shock. “ _No_. Why would you—Jesus—”

Claire shrugs. “Charlie says you have a ‘collection,’” she says, with air-quotes, something she started doing to make fun of Cas, only now she’s doing it unironically without noticing.

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s not—It’s not that.”

“Okay.”

“Besides, you can pick those up at gas stations,” he points out. “Why would I order one from Amazon?”

“Beats me,” says Claire. “So what is it then?”

“None of your fucking business,” he says, just in time for the postal worker to call them up and glare at him for swearing. He ignores her and hands her the slip and quickly signs for Sam’s package. It’s a square box and when Dean shakes it, something lightweight rattles around a little. Probably not a book. Maybe one of those geeky figurines that Charlie has? Maybe she finally convinced him to get some Game of Thrones shit for his boring ass room.

“Should we open it?” asks Claire with a grin.

Dean thinks of his envelope. “Nah,” he says, attempting casual. “He’ll just bitch at us about snooping.”

They get back on the road and start the hour-long drive home. Claire usually starts her homework, but she leaves her backpack at her feet and absently turns her envelope in her hands.

“You gonna open it?” Dean asks.

She bites her lip. “I’ll wait to show Sam,” she says slowly, uncertainly. “He helped me study, after all.” She leans down to slip the envelope into one of the front pockets of her backpack and then, in a clear attempt at a subject change, she says, “So they’re coming back tonight.”

Crap. “Yeah,” he grunts.

“Have you talked to him?”

Talk. Sure. They exchanged sentence fragments over the phone, mostly about the case. But he’s pretty sure Claire means “having an actual conversation.” They’re not really good at that sort of thing. Clearly.

“Yeah,” he says, because there _were_ words involved, after all.

“And?”

“And he’s fine, Claire,” he snaps, and then he turns on the radio to signal that the conversation is over.

 

* * *

 

He’s not fine, that much is clear when they get in at seven that night. Or, he’s fine, but he’s still not over it. Which is fair, Dean guesses. He deals with Dean’s shit all the time, so something had to give eventually.

Sam and Cas drag their bags down the stairs to where Claire and Dean are waiting to greet them. Everything seems normal—Sam gives the usual debrief (poltergeist) and complains about being tired, and Cas is reticent, which is normal, right, or it would be if he was looking at Dean, but he’s _not_ , and the absence of the staring is freaking Dean out. Did the week apart not fix things? Was he still pissed?

“How about you guys?” Sam asks. “Anything come up?”

“My test results came,” says Claire. Cas looks up from where he’s been fiddling with the strap of his bag and resolutely not looking back at Dean. “And you got a package.”

“What is it?”

“Dunno. Dean wouldn’t let me open it.”

“Well, let’s go see what we got,” says Sam, clapping Cas on the shoulder and catching his eye. They exchange an uninterpretable look, and then Cas nods and Sam follows Claire to the library where she has all her homework spread out and the SAT envelope sitting conspicuously under a textbook.

And finally— _finally_ —Cas looks at Dean.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean croaks out.

Cas just stares at him a moment longer before he finally says, “Hello, Dean.”

The ensuing silence is unbearable. Dean tries not to fidget.

“How was the hunt?” Dean asks, his mouth dry.

Cas nods once. “Fine,” he says slowly, and then his gaze starts to drift away, back down to the bags at his feet. When he looks back up, his expression is still blank. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”

“Okay,” says Dean. “Oh—okay. Do you want something to eat?”

Cas shakes his head, and every movement is slow and deliberate.

“Are you okay?” Dean asks, and his stomach jumps with nerves.

“Just tired,” says Cas, and he stoops down to pick up his duffle.

Dean springs into action. “Let me help you with that,” he says, practically diving for the bags. He shoulders the strap and when he straightens, Cas hasn’t moved and he’s right up in his personal space. Cas stares at him, which would be all okay and normal if it wasn’t so _wrong_. He really isn’t giving Dean anything. What’s he supposed to do with this? He thought they’d moved past the blank angel stares a long time ago.

“Thank you,” says Cas, and then he turns and starts down the hall to their room. Dean follows him and manages to hold back a relieved sigh when Cas opens the door to Dean’s room and not the one that is technically Cas’s. He’d spent the night in his own room once before he left with Sam, but he’d slept in Dean’s room on the actual eve of the hunt. They hadn’t touched, and Dean hadn’t slept. He lay there, listening to Cas’s steady breathing and going over every way he’s ever fucked up in his head and wishing he could be better.

Cas goes to the dresser and pulls out a white shirt and some of Dean’s old gray sweat pants, loosening his tie with one hand. He’s gotten better at that, though he still struggles to tie the damn thing properly. Dean drops his bag at the foot of the bed and then waits, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. Shit, this sucks.

“Cas—” he begins.

“Dean, I’m tired,” says Cas, turning around to face him and looking apologetic, which is _almost_ better than blank, but not by much because of all the pity mixed in. “I need some more time,” Cas says, folding the clothes carefully and starting toward the door. He stops to meet Dean’s eyes. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he promises.

Dean takes a deep breath, then lets it out. “Okay.”

Cas nods and then, after a moment of deliberation, he steps into Dean’s space, puts a hand on his shoulder, and kisses him. It’s chaste and stilted, and he probably meant it to be reassuring, but Dean is freaking out too much, so he stiffens. Cas pulls away and gives him a tired smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Then he leaves the bedroom for the bathroom down the hall to get ready for bed, and Dean doesn’t know if he’s going to want Dean around when he comes back, and he doesn’t think he can take that rejection right now, so he makes himself scarce and grabs some whiskey on his way to the garage, where he can work on Baby until he passes out.

 

* * *

 

Dean’s a coward, so he actually _did_ sleep in the Impala’s back seat, and when he wakes up his back is sore and he’s still got grease on his fingers. He groans and washes up in the garage sink, because if the others see him covered in grease and wearing yesterday’s clothes, they’ll _know_ what a fucking coward he is. When he trudges upstairs, he hears them all in the kitchen, so he ducks into the hallway to change his shirt and wash his face.

“Mornin’, Dean,” Sam says, when he finally musters enough nerve to walk into the kitchen. Dean grunts a reply and heads straight to the coffee maker, which is still blessedly full of hot coffee. When he turns back around with a full mug, Cas is staring at him, and Sam and Claire seem to be pointedly _not_. Dean looks away and goes to the fridge to grab some bread, taking sips of coffee as he does to occupy himself.

“You ready to motor, Claire?” he asks, spreading some marmalade on his toast after it pops into the silence.

“Yeah,” she says, “but Sam is giving me a ride today.”

Dean turns around, surprised. “You sure?” he asks Sam. “Aren’t you still wiped from yesterday?”

Sam shrugs. “I turned in early last night. And I’m gonna pick up some celebratory donuts for Claire. I’ll bring you back some, I promise,” he adds.

“Celebrat—Oh shit, that’s right.” He turns to Claire. “What’d you get?”

Claire grins sheepishly. “1070.”

Dean beams at her. “That’s great!” But he falters and looks to Sam. “Uh… Right?”

Sam grins. “It’s awesome.”

“It’s average,” says Claire, but Dean can tell she’s pleased.

“What’d you get?” Dean asks, gesturing to Sam with his mug.

“Well, uh,” Sam says, “1470, but it was a different test—”

“And Sam’s a genius,” adds Claire, rolling her eyes. “It’s fine, Sam, you’re smarter than me.”

“Standardized testing is not an accurate measure of intelligence,” says Cas. “Don’t minimize your accomplishments, Claire. You did well.”

Claire actually _blushes_ , and Dean has the absurd thought that she picked that up from him.

“Well, congratulations, Claire,” says Dean, lifting his mug in a toast. “Glad to know there’s another genius in the family, as though Sam and Charlie weren’t enough.”

“Not a genius,” mutters Claire. “Geniuses don’t redo their senior year of high school.”

“Yeah, well, you’re talking to a guy who never had a first one,” he says. “Just be glad they let you in instead of making you do the GED crap. That’s for the real dummies.”

“You are not stupid either, Dean,” Cas snaps suddenly. “And I know you worked very hard for your GED, so please don’t minimize _your_ accomplishments.”

And because he can’t help it, Dean opens his big mouth. “Oh yeah, I worked real hard for my Loser Degree.”

Cas slams down his coffee mug with a sharp bang, and the guy still manages to not splash coffee everywhere. “ _Dean_ ,” he says sharply, focusing the full force of his blue glare on him. Dean looks away.

The awkward silence doesn’t last long; after a beat, Sam interrupts it. “We should get going,” he says to Claire, pushing himself to his feet.

“Yeah,” says Claire, quickly shoving the rest of her toast into her mouth and gulping down some coffee, and Dean realizes belatedly that the _real_ reason Sam is driving her is to give Dean and Cas space to talk.

Great.

He finishes his toast quickly, too, and follows Sam and Claire out to the front of the bunker where Sam’s dumb Honda is parked. He’s stalling and he knows they can tell, and he missed Cas all week but now he doesn’t think he can face the guy.

When Sam starts the car, Dean has no excuses left, so he turns and walks back into the bunker. He half-hopes that Cas decides to do the dishes or avoid him for a little while longer, but no such luck; Cas is standing in the main room at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for him.

Before Dean can beat a hasty retreat or think of some errand he has to run, far away from here, Cas says, “Would you like to take a walk?”

Dean blinks down at him. “A walk?”

Cas nods. “We can walk Sam’s route. It will be good for your back.”

Dean frowns. “My back’s fine.”

“Your posture is poor this morning and there is a grease stain on your jeans,” says Cas, so yeah, he knows where Dean slept, then.

“Sounds like just another day to me,” Dean mutters, starting down the stairs. “All right, let’s take a walk.”

They get their jackets and lock up the bunker, and then Cas leads the way down the road. Dean wants to ask how long Sam’s route is, but he also doesn’t want to sound like he’s impatient to get away from Cas. That is exactly the opposite of how he feels. He had sort of hoped their fight would just blow over, but now apparently they are going to have to _talk_ about it. _Christ_.

They walk in silence for a while, coming out of the brush that conceals the bunker and passing an entire field before Cas finally speaks.

“You’re angry with me,” he says, inexplicably, and it’s not a question. “I apologize. I haven’t been fair to you.”

“What?” says Dean, perplexed. “I’m not mad at you.”

Cas finally looks at him instead of watching the road in front of him. He frowns. “You’re not?”

“Dude, no.” He gets it. He really _gets_ it. He knows how frustrating he is. He knows he keeps fucking up. God knows why Cas puts up with it. “I thought _you_ were mad at _me._ ”

Cas sighs in exasperation. “I was never _angry_ , Dean. I was _frustrated_. And more so because no matter how many times I explain, you don’t understand _why_.”

“No, I get it,” says Dean, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “It’s just—I can’t _do_ anything to fix it.”

“There’s nothing that needs to be _fixed_ , Dean,” says Cas, stopping and fixing him with his intense blue gaze. “Everything is fine.”

Dean stops, too, and throws up his hands. “Then why are we fighting?” he demands.

“Because you continue to say and believe things that aren’t true,” says Cas sharply. “Like that you aren’t intelligent or that my Fall is your fault.”

“But it is, isn’t it?” Dean growls. “If it weren’t for me, you could be home.”

“Dean, I _am_ home,” Cas says through clenched teeth. “And it’s _not_ your fault. We talked about this last week.”

No, they’d _yelled_ about it last week, when Dean had made an off-hand comment about it being a shame that Cas’s wings were clipped. At first it seemed like Cas was angry about the reminder, but then the argument got away from Dean and soon they were yelling about whose fault it was that Cas Fell in the first place, which was dumb because it was clearly _Dean’s_. Cas Fell for his sake; he gave up his Grace and his family and his home. Cas sacrificed _everything_ for Dean, and what did Dean have to give him? Years of being a crappy friend and now eight months of being a crappy partner.

God, he is just fucking up Cas’s whole existence. They’re standing on the side of the road, having this stupid argument, surrounded by empty fields, and Dean feels raw and exposed. He’s really fucking up. He’s got nothing to offer Cas, and here he is, making his life stupid and hard.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” says Cas, and then, when Dean opens his mouth to speak, “No. You think you do, but you don’t. I _chose_ this. I _chose_ to give up my Grace and Fall. I _chose_ to stay here with you and Sam. I fought for my Free Will and I intend to keep it. And you insult me by believing this is something that _happened_ to me and not something I found myself free to do—and wanting to do.”

“But you didn’t have to,” Dean argues. “You didn’t have to turn in your halo.”

“And then be caught between two worlds?” says Cas. “Constantly called upon by my brothers and sisters and labelled traitor if I did not answer? I would be forced to choose _every day_ , Dean, between them and you. And I would always choose you.”

“And what if I’m not worth it, huh?” Dean demands, nearly shouting, because, damn it, they _had_ talked about this, had yelled at each other about whether or not Cas would regret Falling. Dean couldn’t stand the thought of Cas resenting him for making him Fall. “What then?”

“You are,” Cas says stiffly, though he probably doesn’t really believe it right now, because, yeah, Dean is fucking up and he’s not even sure _how_. “And I will _never_ regret it.”

“Even if we break up?”

“Are you planning to break up with me?”

Dean crosses his arms. “No,” he says, scuffing the road with his boot.

“If you are, please wait until Claire is at college. I’ve read that divorces can adversely affect children—”

“Jesus Christ, Cas,” Dean spits, and when he looks up, Cas is smiling at him. He scowls back. “Are you seriously making fun of me right now?”

“I apologize,” says Cas, even though he’s still smiling. “I didn’t mean to make light of the situation. I merely wanted to point out how ridiculous that worry is. But if it will put your mind at ease, I do believe that even in the event that we separate, I will not regret Falling. You were certainly a factor in my decision, but you were not the whole of it.”

Somehow that’s both reassuring and disappointing. Dean’s an asshole.

“So, what now?” Dean asks after a while. “So maybe I don’t understand. Okay. So what do you want me to do?”

“Respect my agency,” says Cas.

“I don’t know what that means,” Dean growls.

“Stop _blaming_ yourself,” says Cas, stepping toward him and into his space. “I don’t. You can mourn that I’m cut off from my family, fine—we can do that together—but keep in mind that I have a new family now, one that I _chose_ for myself.” He takes another step closer and reaches for Dean’s hands. Dean lets him tangle their fingers together.

“I just—” Dean huffs out a breath. “I just feel bad. Responsible. You know? And I can’t—”

“I know,” says Cas. “And that is why we’ll keep having this argument.” Dean meets his eyes, and Cas smiles softly. “I’m sorry,” he adds. “Sam intimated that you tend to shoulder the burdens of others personally and take blame where none is being meted. I had forgotten that. It’s irrational, but it’s a result of your father’s pressure on you, and I should have taken that into consideration when I made my choice. I apologize for burdening you with this guilt, and I assure you it is unfounded. You may stop feeling it at any time.”

Dean snorts. “Yeah, okay, I’ll just stop my _feelings_.”

“Only some of them, I hope.”

He rolls his eyes. “Did you and Sam just talk about me and my feelings all week, or did you actually have a job?”

“You were often a topic of conversation,” says Cas, swaying further into his space. “All of your insecurities and inadequacies.”

“Oh, now I’m _inadequate_?”

Cas hums and disentangles one hand to slip it down to finger Dean’s belt buckle. “In some respects, you are perfectly adequate,” he murmurs.

Dean grins. “Flatterer.”

Cas fails to smother a smile and closes the space between them, his hands slipping down to Dean’s hips. This kiss is much better than their last one; it’s lazy and less obligatory and feels like forgiveness, even though he’s not sure they’ve actually solved anything.

“This argument isn’t over yet, is it?” Dean murmurs.

“I have a feeling it will be one of our recurring arguments,” says Cas, nipping at Dean’s bottom lip. “To counteract it, I will continue to tell you that I don’t regret us. I don’t want to fight anymore. I missed you.”

“Missed you, too, Cas,” Dean breathes, and he kisses him again and pulls him in closer. They’re still standing on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere Kansas, and it’s cold outside, cold enough that when they both exhale, their breaths become ghosts in the air, but Dean can feel himself warming and he didn’t realize how cold he’d felt all week until now.

“Why don’t we head back to the bunker,” says Dean, “before somebody drives by and catches a coupla homos making out in the road?”

“No one ever drives this road,” says Cas, “and neither of us are homosexual.”

“Yeah, but people ‘round here aren’t big on nuance,” says Dean.

“I’d like to finish our walk.”

“Seriously?”

“It’ll be good for your back.”

Dean huffs. “My back’s _fine_. I was sort of thinking we’d go back and exchange blow jobs.”

“I think we both need to shower before we do that.”

“Hmm.” Dean hides a grin by leaning in and nipping Cas’s earlobe. “That sounds good, too.”

Cas pulls away and takes Dean’s hand, tugging him down the road in the wrong direction, so he guesses they’re going to finish the walk after all, which is maybe okay because his back _does_ hurt and they probably still need to talk and catch up and be nice to each other for a while. Although blow jobs would be nice, too.

 

* * *

 

Dean finds the envelope unopened, shoved between the nightstand and the bed, and he realizes that in all the drama of that day, he’d completely forgotten about it. They hadn’t forgotten about Sam’s; the very next day Claire had pestered him about it until he showed them that it was new noise-cancelling headphones.

“Why do you need noise-cancelling headphones?” Dean asked, frowning.

“’Cause I live with you,” Sam retorted, and Claire choked on her dinner and Dean felt himself flush. Their rooms were pretty well sound-proofed, but even so he and Cas tried to keep it down, and they always locked the door, so what was Sam even talking about?

So with all that and his argument with Cas and the subsequent making up taking up the space in his head, he’d forgotten about his mail until a week later when he finds it as he’s searching for his favorite shirt. He still hasn’t opened it, and he’s pretty sure he knows what it is. He’d bought it off Amazon on a nervous whim weeks ago, then had purposefully blocked the fact that, yes, he _just did that_ , out of his mind so well he hadn’t been sure it would ever arrive.

Except now it’s here and it’s almost Valentine’s Day and shit shit shit, now he’s nervous. He feels it boiling in his gut, inflating his stomach and pushing his insides around. It’s a familiar feeling, like every time he has to come out to someone, because apparently coming out is a lifelong, continual process, and he _knows_ that, Charlie told him so, but it still catches him by surprise every time.

And this… This is a secret only he knows. He’s only told one other person, and _that_ guy is dead. And almost doesn’t count.

A quick, double-knock comes from his doorway, and he starts and whirls around just as Charlie is saying, “Guess who’s back, bitches!”

“Jesus, Charlie,” he says, but he’s grinning and he walks over to his open door to greet her. She grins back and pushes off the doorjamb where she’s leaning to step into his hug. “You just get in?”

“Yup,” she says cheerfully. “Let myself in, too. Where are Sam and Cas?”

“Library, probably,” he says. “Nerds.”

“When are we heading out?”

He shrugs. “Five-ish. Just gotta find my shirt,” he says, waving at the pile of clothes he’d thrown on the bed to look for it.

Unfortunately, he’d waved with the envelope, and Charlie eyes it. “What’s that?” she asks.

He glances at it as casually as possible and tosses it into the corner. “Nothin’. Let’s find Sam and Cas.”

He leads the way down the hall to the library, and Charlie fills him in on some Moondoor gossip and a hunt she went on recently.

“Just a ghost, I promise,” she says. “No more vamp nests for me.”

“I swear to God,” says Dean, shaking his head, “if you die, I’m going to break into heaven and shake you.”

“Aww,” she says, beaming. “You think I’ll go to heaven?”

“I _know_ you will.”

“That’s not what the protestors at Comic Con said.”

“Yeah, well, fuck ‘em,” he mutters. “You’re aces.”

She grins at him. “Thought that was Cas. You guys doing good?”

Better than last week. “Yeah.”

“Your date tonight should be fun.”

Dean frowns at her. “Date?” he says, perplexed.

“Yeah,” she says. “Dinner and a show.”

He rolls his eyes. “It’s not a date if you and Sam are there. And it’s Claire’s play.”

“So it’s a double date,” she chirps. “And seeing local theater productions totally counts as a date. Don’t argue with me, Winchester, I’m the queen,” she adds when he opens his mouth to protest. He closes his mouth and scowls at her and she pats his arm. “Wear a nice shirt,” she suggests. “Maybe a tie.”

“Oh, shut up,” he complains, just as they reach the library, where—lo and behold—Sam and Cas are doing research. They look up when he and Charlie enter, with Charlie bouncing behind him.

“Hi, guys!” she says, and God, it’s like she just makes the whole place a little brighter. Sam and Cas both straighten and smile at her, and she hugs each of them in turn.

“Hey, Sam, wanna be my date tonight?” asks Charlie, pulling up a chair for herself and sliding a book across the table.

Sam blinks and then grins. “Yeah, sure.”

“Great!” She throws back her hair and looks at Dean over her shoulder. “There. See? Double date.”

 

* * *

 

Halfway through Claire’s play—something about old ladies poisoning people, and Dean is uncomfortably reminded of that witch last month—there is an intermission, _thank God_. Dean’s back is _killing_ him.

“Why do they have to use those crappy metal chairs?” Dean grouses on their way out the door. “They should give us couches. Next time, Sam is coming alone with his tablet and we’ll live stream it.”

“Claire’s right, you really are turning into a crotchety old man,” says Sam.

“I’ll tan your hide, Sammy,” Dean snaps. Sam wrinkles his nose, and Cas and Charlie laugh.

“We are here for Claire,” says Cas. “It’s important to support her.”

“We can’t even see her,” Dean grumbles. “She’s just running _tech_.”

“I ran tech,” says Sam, looking mildly affronted.

“Yeah, and I watched your dumb play, too, but I didn’t have a friggin’ kink in my back.”

Charlie and Sam exchange knowing looks and then say together, “Crotchety old man.”

“Screw you guys,” Dean complains, rolling his shoulders and trying to stretch.

“Lean over and touch your toes,” Cas suggests.

“Man, I can’t touch my toes.”

“Maybe you should take up yoga,” says Sam, smirking.

“Ha ha ha, Sam.”

“Perhaps we should exercise more,” muses Cas. “Your back has been bothering you a lot recently.”

“We exercise plenty,” he says, trying a leer that is mostly a wince because _ow_. “What about all the running we do on hunts?”

“Hunting is not dissimilar to a sprint,” says Cas.

“Deans are natural sprinters,” says Charlie. “Very dangerous over short distances, and wasted on cross-country.”

“Very funny, Charlie,” Dean growls, and Cas reaches over and puts a hand on the back of his neck, squeezing reassuringly. If they weren’t in public, Dean knows he’d be getting a massage already. One more reason to live stream the play next time.

“You enjoyed yoga with Lisa,” Cas points out.

“No, I enjoyed the fact that _Lisa_ did yoga.”

“And if you start running with Sam,” Cas continues, ignoring him, “you can work on your endurance.”

“I haven’t heard any complaints about my endurance from you before,” says Dean with a smirk, and Cas returns it with a quirked eyebrow.

“Oh. My. God. Gross.”

They all turn to see Claire standing behind them, wearing all black with her blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. She crosses her arms impatiently, looking displeased.

“You guys can’t stop flirting for _one second_?” she demands.

Dean grins at her. “Hey, Claire. Great show so far.”

Claire rolls her eyes, because she’s a teenager and has to pretend that she doesn’t care. “It’s just a high school play.”

“You all worked hard on it, though,” says Sam. “It shows.”

“And at least it’s not Supernatural,” Dean mutters, and Sam chuckles.

“Yeah, I begged them not to do it,” says Claire, and Sam outright laughs at the horror on Dean’s face. “ _On the road so far_ ,” Claire begins to sing.

“Stop, or you’re grounded forever,” Dean warns, pointing a finger at her. She sticks her tongue out at him and crosses her arms again. “Don’t you have last minute freaking out to do with the rest of the drama geeks?”

Claire shrugs. “I just do the lights. And Annie showed, so there’s nothing I gotta be understudy for.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t get the part,” says Cas. “It would have been nice to see you perform.”

“Not much of a performer, Cas,” says Claire, and then she smirks. “But I promise if we do Supernatural for the spring musical, I’ll try out anyway.”

“I swear to fuck, _why_ Marie thought putting that on the internet would be a good idea—” Dean starts.

“Who would you try out for?” asks Sam, because he’s terrible.

Clarie hums thoughtfully. “I dunno. Jody? Or maybe one of the aliens.”

“You should try out for Dean,” says Charlie, grinning, because she’s also terrible. “You do a pretty good impression.”

Claire snorts. “ _Please_ ,” she says gruffly. “Pretty good my ass. My impressions’re awesome.”

Dean glowers at her, and she turns a matching glower on him. Charlie and Sam giggle.

“Hmm,” says Cas. “The resemblance is uncanny.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Maybe later.”

Claire promptly stops glaring and rolls her eyes, dropping her shoulders and leaning her weight back onto one leg. She had been faking bow-leggedness, the brat. “And that’s my cue to escape. See you after the show.” She turns, waving a hand, and heads back to the doors to the auditorium.

“Break a leg!” calls Charlie, and Claire fakes a stumble and a limp, and then waves once more before disappearing inside.

“Not a performer my ass,” says Dean. Sam laughs, and then the drama teacher comes out to announce that they’ll be resuming the show shortly, and they all head back to their seats.

“Would you like to use my jacket as a pillow?” Cas asks as they sit down.

“Huh? Oh yeah, sure.” Dean leans forward, and Cas folds up his jacket and pushes it into place at Dean’s lower back. Dean leans back and, okay, that sort of helps. He’s still uncomfortable, though, and it’s probably not going to get better. He glances around, but the lights are down, and there’s a reason they picked seats in the back. No one’s looking, so he swings an arm around Cas’s shoulders and rests it across the back of his chair. Once he’s settled in, one ankle on his other knee, Cas moves his hand to Dean’s knee and leaves it there. It sends shivers up his spine; this is dangerous, this level of touch in public, and they usually never chance it unless they’re in a blue state, and even then, rarely. But Cas likes touching him, has never been shy about getting into Dean’s personal space, and if this is something he chose, Dean’s gonna make it worth his while. And besides, no one’s looking. No one can see. It’s okay.

He glances around again, but everyone is focused on the rising curtain. And, he thinks, even if someone were to look over, he wouldn’t want to withdraw.

He’s gotta make this worth it for Cas.

 

* * *

 

Claire promised there would be refreshments after the show, which is pretty much the only reason Dean is okay with sticking around so she can socialize. Dean watches her flit around from group to group with one of the other girls. She looks happy. Sometimes she gets so angry with them that Dean feels this deep black hole of guilt in his gut, and he thinks of all the ways they’ve screwed her up—it’s their fault her parents are dead, his fault she saw people she trusted with their guts and blood all over his hands, and now she’s saddled with two dad-figures in _Kansas_ of all fucking places—but then he sees her like _this_ , in her element, having a normal-girl experience, and he thinks she’ll be okay.

She turns and catches him watching her and frowns. Dean lifts his chin in a casual nod to cover, and she turns away once more, but it’s apparently to grab Justin—that kid from last week—and drag him over.

“Hey guys,” she says breathlessly.

“Hey Claire! That was so awesome!” says Charlie, way too excited for this late at night and shit, maybe he _is_ turning into a crotchety old man. Sam turns from the woman he’s been talking to—she’s pretty and tall and totally Sam’s type with the hot librarian look going on—and grins at Claire, who smirks at him and raises an eyebrow and then turns to Charlie, who is still gushing excitedly over the show.

“Yeah, thanks,” says Claire in response to Charlie’s enthusiasm. “Thank God it’s over.”

“It was awesome, Claire,” says Sam, and the woman next to him nods, smiling. “Did you have fun?”

“Oh, I partied hard,” she says, “and now I’m gonna drop. But, uh,” she says, when Justin tugs on her sleeve, “this is Justin. Justin, Charlie and Sam.”

“Nice to meet you,” says Justin, grinning.

“You, too,” says Charlie. “You were great as Jonathan.”

“Whoa, what?” says Dean, and he peers at Justin. “Dude, I didn’t even recognize you.”

Justin flushes, clearly pleased. “Well, we’ve only met once,” he says, glancing around the group. “Where’s Cas?”

“He’s—” Dean turns to where Cas _was_ standing next to him, but he’s not there anymore. “Cas?”

“Here.” Dean turns the other way to find Cas at his elbow, his head tilted to the side slightly.

“Jeez, how do you still do that?” Dean asks.

Cas tilts his head even more. “Do what?”

“The disappearing and reappearing thing.”

Cas straightens and shrugs. “Residual mojo, perhaps,” he says, and then he holds up a plate of—wait a hot second— “They had pie,” he says, always the master of stating the obvious. “You mentioned wanting refreshments, but you hate standing in line, so I procured some for you.”

“Dude,” says Dean, taking the proffered plate and fork. “And it’s apple? Best husband ever.” Cas smiles indulgently, and Dean returns it briefly before turning his attention to the pie. The woman next to Sam laughs and the rest of them snicker, but Dean ignores them and digs in.

“Shut up. You guys are just jealous,” he says around a mouthful of pie.

“Of having pie, maybe,” says Claire.

“I wish I were gay married,” says Charlie with a sigh.

“Not gay,” says Dean, with his mouth full, and Sam wrinkles his nose.

“Well, I am,” says Charlie.

“What about that Alice chick?”

Charlie shrugs. “She’s not the settling down type.”

“Always figured you’d marry somebody named Hope or Charity or Belladonna anyway,” says Dean, grinning at her. Charlie laughs.

“For a long time, I thought the same about you,” says Sam, smirking.

“What can I say?” says Dean. “Guess I’m just a sucker for people named Cas.” He thinks for a moment. “ _Cas_ tity?”

“No,” says Cas flatly.

“Balthazar did always call you Cassie,” says Sam.

Cas fixes Sam with his best Smiting Glare. Dean pats his shoulder, shaking his head, and then notices that Justin is positively beaming at them with stars in his eyes. He clears his throat and nudges Cas. Right. Not Straight role modeling.

“Hey Justin, this is Cas,” he says. “Cas, Justin. Claire’s friend. Played Jon.”

Cas turns and nods at Justin. “Hello. I enjoyed the play.”

“Thanks,” says Justin breathlessly, grinning from ear to ear. God, he probably has a crush on _both_ of them now. Dean can’t really blame him; Cas’s dumb sex hair and baby blues are damn near irresistible. Once he finishes his pie and they find a dark corner behind the stage, his hands are gonna be all over that.

They all make small talk about the play, and Dean finally finds out that the woman talking up Sam is the school nurse, so Dean is _so_ making a “playing doctor” joke when she’s out of earshot. Finally Sam asks Claire for a backstage tour, so he can relive his drama days probably, and after making them all promise not to touch anything, she leads them inside and around the stage. The tech area is just a panel in the wings, nothing like the fancy one at St. Alphonso’s Academy. Claire shows them how it works with just enough of a detached attitude that Dean knows she’s super proud of herself.

Any other time, he’d actually be interested in how the panel works, but now they’re backstage and it’s dark and empty and he has a _tradition_ about these things, so he grabs Cas’s sleeve and tugs him back away from the group.

“What is it, Dean?” Cas whispers, thankfully sensing the secrecy of the mission.

“Come on,” he says, starting toward the curtains. They find the back wall of the stage, which is hidden by the back curtain and has several painted set boards leaning against it. He glances around and nods, satisfied that the only way anyone could see them is if they deliberately looked down the dark, narrow space between the wall and the curtain. “Okay.”

“Dean, what—”

Dean shuts him up with a kiss and pushes him against the wall, and it doesn’t take long for Cas to get it. He grips Dean’s waist and pulls him in closer until they’re pressed up against each other and making out proper.

“Dean, what are you doing?” Cas whispers after a while.

“It’s tradition,” says Dean, nuzzling his neck until Cas lifts his chin so he can get at the soft skin of Cas’s neck. He licks a stripe up to Cas’s ear and purposefully breathes out a laugh over it, and Cas shudders. “Used to do this to Sam all the time.”

“You used to kiss Sam behind a curtain?” Cas asks, frowning.

“Dude!” Dean pulls away to give him a disgusted look. “Gross! No! No, I mean, taking someone back behind stage after his shows. God.”

“Oh.” Cas looks around thoughtfully. “It does afford a certain amount of privacy, while also maintaining the exciting threat of getting caught.”

“Exactly.” Dean nips at his ear. “And it’s fun to see the look on his face.”

“So you’re only making out with me to anger your brother,” says Cas, his gravelly voice full of disapproval.

“And Claire,” he says. “And because I’ve been wanting to get my hands on you ever since you brought me pie.”

“Only since then?” Cas asks wryly, sliding his hands down Dean’s sides to his ass and pressing him closer.

“Hands above the belt, Cas,” Dean says against his mouth.

“If you say so,” says Cas, and suddenly Dean is back against the wall instead. He inhales sharply. Angel Grace or no, Cas is fast and strong and fuck, is it a turn on or what. Cas holds him against the wall and slips one hand under his shirt to wander up and down his chest and side, like Dean’s some girl getting felt up backstage. So now he knows how they all felt. Fuck. Cas’s kisses are heavy and open, and he shifts a knee between Dean’s legs and _holy shit_. Dean moans against his mouth and threads his fingers through Cas’s hair to grip his head closer. This is the best idea he’s had all night.

“Oh—!”

“ _Really?_ ”

Dean grins into their kiss, which Cas breaks in order to look over at Sam and Claire. Sam’s annoyed, but resigned, huff and Claire’s enraged exclamation mean success, as far as Dean’s concerned. He looks over to see Sam covering his face with a hand, Claire at his shoulder, all red-faced and puffed up in anger.

“ _Really?_ ” she says again, and Cas steps away from Dean, looking sheepish. “God! You guys are like horny teenagers!”

“It was Dean’s idea,” says Cas.

“Jeez, Cas, way to throw me under the bus. It takes two to tango.”

“He said it’s a—”

“Tradition,” says Sam with a sigh. He’s still covering his eyes, like he’s afraid they’re still all over each other even though they’ve been caught, which, valid.

“I. Hate. You guys,” says Claire through clenched teeth. “So much.” She turns on her feel and stomps away, past where, it is revealed, Charlie, Justin, and the school nurse are standing, all looking amused. Justin looks positively delighted, and if he didn’t have a crush on them before, he probably does now. Dean throws him a wink, and he laughs.

“Did y’all enjoy the show?” Dean asks, grinning. “It only gets better from here on out.”

 

* * *

 

Claire is angry all the way to the car until Sam reveals to them all that the nurse—Elizabeth—gave him her number, and then Claire is smug and Dean is pretty sure she played matchmaker with that one.

“So are you two gonna play doctor?” Dean quips.

Sam rolls his eyes so hard they’re likely to fall out of his head. “You been sitting on that one all night?”

Dean leers at him and Cas kisses the side of his head, apparently to distract him while he fishes the keys out of Dean’s pocket.

“I’ll drive,” he says.

“The hell you will,” Dean says, but he lets him anyway.

 

* * *

 

There is very little Cas doesn’t know about him; at least it seems that way. Chalk it up to their “profound bond” or their seven-year friendship or whatever else, but no matter which way you slice it, Cas knows Dean really well. He can sense when Dean’s having one of his bad days, and he knows exactly where the sensitive spots on the backs of his knees are, and he knows what Dean dreams about, and not only because he apparently used to eavesdrop on Dean’s dreams but also because now when Dean wakes up from a bad night, he tells Cas about them.

There’s still one thing he’s never told Cas, though, mostly because he swore to himself that he would take it to his grave. It’s possible that Cas already knows, because angels don’t exactly understand the ethics of mind reading, and he’s sure Cas read his mind a couple times back in the day. It’s sort of embarrassing to think about, but there’s only one way to find out.

Dean tries to convince himself there are only upsides to revealing this, then. He’ll find out if Cas already knows, and if Cas is into it, and if he is, then Dean will have done him a solid, and they can add another tick mark to the Good Idea side of the Falling tally board Dean’s got in his head.

If he’s not into it, they’ll probably still fuck, and Dean can just play it off as a one-time thing. It’s worth a shot though, to see if it’ll make Cas happy, right?

Right.

He hears Cas’s footsteps coming down the hall, so he throws the torn envelope across the room, makes a split-second decision to forgo pants (the look in Cas’s eye before he left to clean up for bed meant he’d be losing them soon anyway), and jumps into bed, quickly throwing the covers over himself and turning onto his side, facing away from the door. His heart drums an anxious beat against his sternum as Cas walks in and shuts the door. Oh God, this was a bad idea. Cas sits on his side of the bed, and Dean hears the two thumps of his slippers as he kicks them off, the opening and closing of the creaky drawer of the nightstand, and then the click of the lamp as Cas turns it off. He lifts the covers, letting a puff of cold air in to brush against Dean’s bare back, and settles down next to Dean, just barely touching him. Dean can feel the heat of his skin, and his hair stands on end, as though it’s reaching out for Cas. There’s a moment where they just lie there and Dean thinks maybe Cas is tired and, despite their hot make-out backstage earlier, nothing is going to happen tonight, which is almost a relief, but then Cas shifts and slides his arm around Dean, pulling him closer.

“Hello, Dean,” he murmurs into Dean’s ear, his breath ghosting over his skin. He presses a kiss to Dean’s neck and slides the pads of his fingers over Dean’s stomach.

Dean swallows the lump of panic that has been building in his throat. “Hey, Cas,” he croaks.

Cas’s hand falters over his navel, and he props himself up on one elbow to look down at Dean. It’s dark, so he probably can’t see, but then again, maybe he’s got leftover night vision, along with above-average strength and speed. For all Dean knows, Cas can use echolocation. “Is everything okay?” Cas asks seriously. “You seem…”

Dean shifts onto his back. “Yeah,” he breathes. “I’m fine.” He tilts his head back and Cas leans down to kiss him, kind of carefully and uncertainly, so Dean opens his mouth and Cas begins to kiss with more confidence. His hand resumes its slow switch-backing journey down Dean’s stomach, his thumb rubbing circles into Dean’s skin, and then—finally—his fingers brush along the lace.

Cas freezes and then hesitantly rubs the material between his fingers. “Dean,” he says hoarsely, and Dean bites his lip. Moment of truth, here. “What are you wearing?”

Dean takes a deep breath but falters on the release. “Um…”

Cas sits up abruptly and leans over Dean to switch on the lamp on Dean’s side. Dean blinks against the sudden brightness, and in his moment of disorientation, Cas yanks the covers back.

The unfathomable expression on Cas’s face isn’t encouraging, but it’s not damning either. He stares down at Dean, motionless, until he says at last, “Dean. Why are you wearing women’s underwear?”

“I ever tell you about Rhonda Hurley?” he asks in answer. Cas tears his gaze away from Dean’s crotch to his eyes, fixing Dean with a wide-eyed blank stare. Dean really hopes it’s shock and not repulsion that’s making Cas react this way. “I was nineteen. She thought it was hot when guys wore her panties.”

Cas looks back down at the lacy panties he’s wearing. They’re black with these little yellow bees patterned all over them because when Dean saw them he had laughed and thought of Cas, and then he’d _thought of Cas_ , and then he’d ordered them. The black lace is just the icing on the cake; it surprises Dean how soft it is, when it seems like lace should itch. He wasn’t sure about the size either, so he’d made a best guess and they are comfortable enough, so.

So.

“Um,” says Dean, shifting slightly. “So. Um. What do you think?”

He barely gets another breath before Cas crashes down onto him, crushing their mouths together, and any breath he did manage to get would have been knocked out of him anyway by the sudden weight of Cas’s body on top of his. Cas grinds down, and Dean gasps against his mouth, giving Cas the perfect opportunity to practically shove his tongue down Dean’s throat, as though he can’t get close enough. Holy _fuck_.

“So you like it?” he manages when Cas finally lets him take a breath. He’s already breathing hard, and his heart is pounding loudly in his ears. He didn’t know he had enough blood to cover everything that’s going on.

Cas moves back over him from where he’s been working a hickey onto the most goddamn visible place on Dean’s neck, the bastard. His intense blue stare bores down into Dean’s eyes, and Dean shifts.

“Why are you doing this?” Cas asks.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart,” says Dean, grinning, and when Cas frowns and is clearly about to argue that Valentine’s Day isn’t for another two days, Dean heads him off. “Look, I’ve been thinking. And I’m sorry. I got all this… guilt and shame and self-hatred going on, I know that. I just want you to know that I _appreciate_ your _choice_. If you chose this, then that’s awesome in my book. I may not understand it, but I’m grateful.”

Cas looks down and fingers the edge of the panties, underneath which Dean is fucking ready to go.

“So this is to show your... appreciation,” he says.

“And my dedication to bees,” says Dean. “All proceeds go to bees or whatever. Do you like it?”

Cas leans down and kisses him again. “I do,” he says. “I like it very much. Do you like it?” he asks, voice a little huskier.

Dean swallows. “Yeah. But don’t tell anyone.”

Cas chuckles and dives down to kiss him again. “Then I like it even more,” he growls, dragging his teeth along Dean’s bottom lip. He presses down against Dean again, and Dean shudders underneath him. “I’m going to fuck you now,” he says, his voice low and rumbling and Dean groans. “Say you’ll _bee_ mine, Dean.”

His groan turns into a low chuckle. “Was that a fucking bee pun?”

“You won’t _bee_ lieve how many I have saved up.”

Dean outright laughs and grabs a pillow to smack him with.

God. They’re fucking ridiculous.

“Keep that shit up and these things are coming right off,” Dean warns.

Cas grins down at him. “That _is_ the idea.”

Okay, he was wrong; _this_ is the best idea he’s had all night.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Claire stomps into the kitchen with her hair a practical bird’s nest on her head. She goes right up to Sam, ignoring Dean and Cas entirely.

“I’m going to need some of those headphones, too,” she growls.

Sam blinks and then grimaces sympathetically. “I did tell you,” he says.

Claire groans. Cas surreptitiously sticks his finger into the waistband of Dean’s sweats, under which he’s still wearing the panties.

“Don’t _bee_ so dramatic, Claire,” says Cas.

Dean busts up laughing. Claire glares at the two of them, flushing furiously.

It’s a good day.


End file.
